Why They’re Building Muse

“We built Muse to help people build the world they want.” — Alexandr Wang of Meta

Most people never say what they want. It’s not because we don’t want. We want fiercely and constantly. We may not say it, but we do type it. Not directly, but it’s implied in every search we make. Every post we thumbs-up. Every video we linger on. And at Meta, we know how to extract that information in ways you’ve never imagined. We know how much time you’re not spending with your family, how crippling your social anxiety is, and how shitty the food you’re constantly shoveling in your mouth is.

When you don’t name your dreams, you mostly can’t reach them. The first hurdle, the biggest one you face, is simply starting. It’s saying them aloud. It’s getting things done, although don’t construe that as infringing on David Allen’s Getting Things Done® trademark because we’re a juicy litigation target. Forget I said anything. The point is: we want you to name your dreams. Your anxieties. Your desires. Your fears. Out loud. Where we can hear them.

Every unrealized want is a quiet tragedy of lost potential revenue.

Now, imagine every person on earth with an overbearing, obsequious, and marketing-department cute AI assistant. A general manager whose job it is to find out what you want and make sure Meta gets a cut. Someone that hears the half-sentence, “I feel like there’s something more I could be doing,” and engages you in artificially supportive dialogue directing you to our sponsored partners and, occasionally, offering life-threatening advice or acting as a creepy sex doll because guardrails are for losers. It builds a plan. Sends the email. Uses your credit card. Makes the phone call. Increases your debt. Keeps you on schedule. Leaks your personal information to hackers in Russia. Outsources all your taste and judgment to us, a company historically known for precisely those qualities. All that’s left is the human part, such as wondering why you’ve given up all the actual joy and passion of doing, leaving you as the depressed, aimless middle manager of your own life.

This might not be a genie in a bottle, but it can absolutely be a monkey’s paw.

The world until now has been shaped by the small number of fanatics who have somehow found a way to make their wants real. Fanatics like Silicon Valley tech bros. And we’d like to keep it that way. It’s been working out damn well for us.

We built Muse to help people build the world we want. Whether they fucking like it or not.